KEIR Starmer doesn’t have his problems to seek. And I’m not talking about the mayoral or English local elections.
First there is Tony blinkin’ Blair, muddying the water about Labour’s net zero strategy and getting it wrong on almost every count – though Keir and his acolytes are feart of correcting him lest they generate more “red on red” headlines.
Blair, or Sir Tony as we should now call him, thinks voters are pushing back against the green transition because British efforts are such a tiny drop in the fossil fuel ocean.
In the foreword to a report by his own think tank, Blair says people in rich countries no longer want to make financial sacrifices “when their impact on global emissions is minimal”, and claims political leaders “would like to start taking hysteria out of the climate debate but are reluctant to be the first”.
This is wrong on so many counts it’s hard to know where to start.
Firstly, even if a greener UK made no impact on the planet or behaviour of anyone in the wider world, it would still be worth it for us. Denmark figured this out 50 years ago, when they moved wholesale into wind energy after the Opec oil crisis.
As their climate change minister Dan Jorgensen explains in the State Of Happiness film, that switch was all about protecting the Danish economy, not saving the planet. At least not originally.
Blair says he backs Starmer’s emphasis on economic growth. Yet a country that relies on oil and gas will soon be investing in stranded assets.
Secondly, a shift to renewables improves Britain’s energy security, whatever China or Africa does. Solar, tidal, hydro and wind are relatively cheap and homegrown.
We largely import relatively expensive gas.
Thirdly, the shift to green energy will cut bills – gas and nuclear are the most expensive and most heavily subsidised.
Finally, Sir Tony should get out more. As crossbench peer, Lord Nicholas Stern explained on Radio 4 yesterday, China now has more wind and solar than fossil fuel power.
Financial experts Bloomberg say global coal demand has likely peaked and will decline 25% over the next decade. Reuters report global sales of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles have risen 29% on 2024.
Zambia’s government has reduced the approval time for solar applications from six months to 48 hours. And US solar energy will reach 182GW next year — double 2023 levels, despite Donald Trump.
Of course, it’s not enough, but it’s not nothing.
There is green progress across the world and it’s another case of British – or English exceptionalism – to think no one else can possibly be as progressive or impactful as ourselves.
The only point Blair got right is the switch to green heating – currently falling unfairly on individual billpayers rather than collectively on all of us as taxpayers. That needs the Government to intervene. But Starmer won’t.
So, for a media that automatically pillories green solutions, believes we’re all doomed, rates Nigel Farage and yearns for the big beasts of yesteryear – for these papers, Tony Blair’s Big Green Worries are well worth amplifying.
There’s Starmer’s problem number one.
Problem number two is no smaller – Trump and the missing deal. The Guardian reports that a UK trade deal is a second or even third-order priority for Trump, whose officials have split negotiations with 17 countries into three phases. Sources say the immediate priority are the Asian countries, with South Korea, India and Japan at the top of the list.
Och well, you might think, Trump will get round to us eventually. After all he’s fond of Starmer’s accent, loves the prospect of a state visit, rather likes the King and gets seriously animated about the prospect of a 2028 Open Golf Championship at his own course in Turnberry. You know – the one creatively graffitied this week by Palestinian activists.
The trouble is – time matters to Sir Keir.
He hoped general sycophancy would have tidied that trade deal into the bag already and certainly before a summit on May 19, when the UK aims to seal a deal with the EU. Given his hostility towards EU trade policies, that could make the going a bit rough when Trump finally sits down with Starmer.
And that connects with problem number three – Mark Carney.
Now most commentators would think the arrival of another nominally left-of-centre leader with some experience of British politics and sympathy for Labour would bode well for Starmer. But there’s the unfortunate business of comparisons.
Carney is the Canadian economist – and former Bank of England chief – who unexpectedly triumphed in Monday’s General Election to become the 24th prime minister of Canada, and leader of the Liberal Party.
More importantly, for a world desperately waiting to see some politician repeat Hugh Grant’s performance in Love Actually where the politely defiant British PM tells a presumptuous, overbearing American president where to get off, Carney is like a modern ice hockey stick wielding version of Robin Hood. OK, maybe that’s a bit over the top.
But Carney won because he stuck it to Trump, whose punitive tariffs and casual threat to annex Canada terrified and unified Canadians – while Carney’s Conservative opponent wrongly positioned himself as Trump’s pal, mimicking The Donald’s “America First” slogan with his own “Canada First.”
Wrong. Now the world is re-appraising Carney and “plucky little Canada” (population 40 million).
It’s not that the new PM oozes charisma. It’s not that he’s a leftie.
In fact, millionaire Carney has been dubbed a cut-throat capitalist by the estimable Walrus magazine after accumulating a fortune as the chairman of an asset-management company that shifted operations from Canada to New York.
Upon election as Liberal leader, Carney announced plans to axe his predecessor’s capital gains tax hike, a move the magazine describes as “nothing but a gift to the ultra-rich”.
So, Carney is no Tim Horton’s-quaffing Bernie Sanders.
Yet who didn’t have a wee moment hearing his emphatic victory speech.
“America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country. These are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. But that will never ever happen.”
Confronted with the usual stuff about “small” countries being unable to stand up to superpowers, Carney pointed out Canada was the biggest client for more than 40 American states.
“Remember we supply them [the US] with vital energy. Remember we supply their farmers with fertiliser. We deserve respect. We expect respect and I’m sure we’ll get it in due course again, and then we can have [trade] discussions.”
At last.
After all the excruciating bowing and scraping by Western leaders, here’s one who has stood his ground. And in so doing, won an election he should have lost thanks to tackling an international bully with the “lowest 100-day approval rating in 80 years,” according to ABC News.
Nice timing too.
There’s a wee lesson there. And there’ll be a big point of comparison when the two PMs meet.
One defied Trump, one appeased him.
Starmer walks away with no trade deal, no integrity and not enough courage to back our Canadian cousins faced with American imperialism.
Carney walks away with tough talks ahead, a new chance to coorie closer to Europe, world status and elbows up. Who’s won?
